


Right Under Their Noses

by SoriSeeraKyra



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Dick and Tim don't trust you, Don't whisper in small spaces, F/M, Fluff, Getting to know you, Jason doesn't care, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Ra's al Ghul - Freeform, Mentions of Scarecrow - Freeform, Mentions of Talia al Ghul - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 10:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoriSeeraKyra/pseuds/SoriSeeraKyra
Summary: When you plan a week long family vacation for you and the boys, suspicions flare as Dick and Tim think over the deviousness of Bruce's past girlfriends.





	Right Under Their Noses

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request made to me by a user on tumblr. Anyone can make a request if you have one. :)

Dick was more than a little conflicted. The woman that held hands with his adoptive father seemed nice enough, but a beautiful face had become a problem on multiple different occasions.  

His eyes scanned around the cabin of Bruce’s private plane and he could feel his foot start to tap with a nervous edge, if she wanted, this would be the perfect place to pull the rug out from under them and reveal herself to be the mastermind she was. Granted his paranoid thoughts were brought on by history rather than by any actions that she had taken, but one could never be too careful.

“Don’t stare too hard or she’s going to know somethings up,” his brother Tim stated as he typed away on his laptop.

“There’s not much else to stare at, we haven’t even taken off yet,” Dick whispered back slightly annoyed. “Have you found anything yet?”

“No,” Tim says solemnly. “No bombs, no tracking signals, no guns.”

“It’s almost like she’s just Bruce’s girlfriend,” a harsh voice comments.

Dick’s blue eyes shift to meet his other brother, Jason, who hadn’t even bothered to move his eyes from the window to acknowledge Dick’s presence.

“And how many times have they just been his girlfriend?” Dick questions tersely.

Jason rolls his eyes in consent but adds, “the kid seems to be all right with her.”

Dick’s gaze slides back over to where Bruce and the woman were sitting and met green eyes glaring at him from in between the seats. Dick had to admit that it was strange for Damian to have taken a liking to anyone, and he was surprised how quickly his youngest brother had formed an attachment to the woman. 

“That makes it even worse, what if she’s mind controlled them somehow?”

“Wouldn't be the first time,” Tim adds.

Jason’s eyes left the window to look at the concern laced in his older brother’s eyes. He shifted his gaze to the woman and Bruce. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t agree with Dick that the woman had Bruce under some sort of mind control or was manipulating him and the kid for her own gain. She looked at him with just as much admiration that he gave her.

“Whatever,” he mumbles casting his gaze back to the tarmac.

“The plane is clean,” Tim pipes up.

“She must be planning something for when we land,” Dick mumbles.

“A kidnapping maybe?” Tim muses. “Maybe we should try and subdue her now. She wouldn’t be able to take on the five of us.”

“I’m not helping you idiots,” Jason adds his eyelids falling shut.

“Four of us,” Tim corrects.

“Bruce wouldn’t help us either and Damian probably won’t.”

“Two of us, those aren’t very good odds.”

“When we land we just need to get her alone, then we can strike and find out what her plan is.”

“I would like to posit one last time that she’s probably a normal woman.”

Tim and Dick roll their eyes at Jason.

“Why are you even here?” Dick questions. “I didn’t think that you would have actually wanted to come on vacation with us.”

“She invited me,” Jason responds with a shrug, “and that invitation came with a promise of my own room at the opposite end of the hotel, so the only time I have to spend with you losers is on the plane ride here and back.”

“She got to you too,” Dick mutters, arms crossing over his chest indignantly.

There were a few moments of silence before that door to the private plane finally shut and one of two stewardesses came to give safety instructions. Not to long after the plane was in the air, Dick searched his carry-on bag for any inflight entertainment.

‘Shit’ he thought when he opened the bag and realized that the only thing that he had with him was his half-charged cellphone. Dick slammed his head back onto the headrest, ready to spend the hours long flight in complete boredom. 

Twenty minutes later a warm hand slipped onto Dicks shoulder, catching his attention. He felt his cheeks warm when his gazed met the ruby red lipped smile of the stewardess.

“I was asked to give this to you,” she said politely. The woman slipped a tablet into his hands. “Internet is already to go.”

“Thank you?”

“Oh, it’s no problem, your mother had us prepare them, she was worried that one of you might forget to bring something.”

“She's not my mother,” Dick states flatly, the butterflies from the pretty stewardess gone. As he turns forward in his seat. 

His sudden cold demeanor startled the woman and she almost flinched back from him.

“S-sorry,” she says walking away quickly.

Dick’s eyes find themselves on the woman who had fallen rather silent now as she tapped away on the device she had on her lap. Seemingly able to feel his eyes on her she looked at him and flashed him a small smile. Dick quickly cut his eyes away from the woman, afraid that if he looked at her he would find himself smiling back at her.

***  
“Are Dick and Tim mad at me?” you ask softly. Bruce’s blue orbs slide worriedly over to meet yours and the and on your waist, gives you a reassuring squeeze and uses the other to hit the button to call the elevator.

“Not that I know of, why?” 

“On the plane,” you start, “it seemed like they weren’t happy to be there, and since I’m the one who thought it would be a good idea to bring them I thought that maybe that they were a little angry.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Bruce says with a smile.

“Maybe we should have spent more time together back at home rather than just up and bringing them on a vacation,” you muse as the elevator doors close and the compartment starts to go up the shaft. “We’ve been dating for almost a year, but they don’t really know me, I imagine it's uncomfortable being on a trip with a stranger.”

The elevator open to the top floor, the floor that Bruce had rented for the duration of your vacation.

“Maybe,” he says after thinking on it for some time. 

The suite that you, Bruce and Damian would be staying was located at the end of the hall. Each of the boys had all already gone to their rooms, seemingly finding being in your and Bruce’s presence for a few extra minutes while you finished checking in simply unbearable.

You hadn’t let Bruce know, but he’d already figured out the fact that the boys weren’t comfortable around you nagged at the back of your mind. When you first got serious about your relationship with Bruce, he’d told you what to expect with his children, that they all had their guards up in one way or another, but you hadn’t expected them to hold you at arm's length the way they did, to not even try to get to know you. 

You entered the large penthouse suite and felt your heart flutter slightly at the size of it all. You still weren’t used to the lavishness of which Bruce lived, and he was very nonchalant about it all.

“We could have fit everyone in here,” you comment as you wander around the suite, admiring the cream-colored walls and cool black marble of the floor.

“No one wants to spend vacation in the room with their parents,” he says absently.

You feel a blush run over your cheeks but you don’t say anything.

There was a knock on the door, Bruce being closest opens the door and reveals a bell hop and a maid.

“Hello, Mr. Wayne, we’ve brought your luggage, and can put it all away for you if you would like.”

“Sure,” he says with the smile and moves aside to let both in. 

The maid and the bell hop come inside with the first of your bags and greet you with a smile when they see you.

“Which bedroom?” she questions you.

“Um, the Master Bedroom I guess,” you say awkwardly, slightly uncomfortable with the idea of having someone trifle through your things.

Noticing your nerves, Bruce smiles, “Why don’t you explore the hotel, I’ll make sure everything gets set up properly.”

“Okay,” you say with a relieved smile.

One of the bedroom doors opens and reveals the youngest Wayne.

“Have they brought the bags up yet?” Damian asks.

“Just now,” you smile, “Why don’t you come explore the hotel with me while we wait for them to unpack everything?”

Damian’s green eyes blink at you for a moment before he nods his head in agreement.

“It would be best to scout out our surroundings in a foreign place.”

You toss a raised eyebrow at Bruce who shakes his head slightly embarrassed.

“Come on then,” you say with a smile.

*** 

“I’m telling you she’s up to something,” Dick says angrily.

“So, she just had Bruce fly us all to the Bahamas, rent out the top floor of an extremely popular hotel and gave us our own separate rooms, that we asked for by the way, so that she could what? Relax us to death?” Jason quips.

“It’s not like bad guys have never had overly complicated plans before,” Tim adds.

“I just don’t understand why you guys can’t be happy the Bruce has found a normal woman for once and let them be.”

“Because nothing that happens to him is ever normal, Jason!” Dicks says exasperatedly. “Who does he talk to outside of us or the league? No one. He goes to work in the morning as Bruce Wayne, he comes home at Night and is the Batman, there’s no in between, no down time. Then ten months ago, this woman just shows up and they’re dating and he gives her a job at the company?”

“It’s not like he’s never dated before or given someone a job,” Jason states with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, but all of them had a history,” Tim adds in as he pulls his laptop from his bag.

“What?”

“She’s a ghost Jason, no past, no present, and if we have anything to say about it, no future.”

“Not even a fake I.D.?” Jason asks standing behind Tim has he watches him pull up the woman’s file on the screen.

“Just a name and a birthdate,” Tim says solemnly.

“Bruce would know all of this then,” Jason states, “Why wouldn’t he tell us at least so we could be on our guard.”

“Blackmail, maybe she has something over him.”

“You do know we are talking about Batman, right?”

“Like I said earlier, brainwashing” Dicks says.

“The kid too?” Jason questions.

“It would explain why he warmed up to her so fast.”

“Guys,” Dick states looking at his brothers, “We’ve got to break whatever hold she’s got on them and fast before she carries out whatever her plan is. Then when they’re free we put her in jail just like we do with all of the other bad guys.”

“Shouldn’t we question her? Figure out what it is she actually wants?”

“Yeah, I mean that was part of the arrest her thing, but I figured that was implied.”

There was an awkward silence as the boys looked at each other.

“Hey guys,” a voice called from the door a long with a knock.

Dick went to open the door and found the woman there standing with Damian looking expectantly at him.

“We were going to go explore the hotel, any of you want to come?” She asked with a wide smile. Her tone seemed happy, and the crinkle of the skin around her eyes made the question seem genuine, but Dick couldn’t help but think of all of the women who’d come before and how real they seemed.

“We are actually on our way back to our rooms, jet leg,” he said curtly. He felt his heart stir slightly when the smile dropped off her face in disappointment and squashed it down inside of him.

Damian looked at him skeptically with a raised eyebrow and a questioning cock of his head, “So weak that you couldn’t handle a quick flight Grayson? We didn’t even change time zones.”

“Yeah well, this was short notice and I didn’t sleep well on the plane,” Dick adverted his eyes from the pair and though he could tell that he was being absurdly childish, he couldn’t stop his annoyed tone.

“All right then,” she said with a nice tone and a pleasant smile but none of the warmth reached her eyes. “It’s just me and Damian then.”

Dick watched as the pair walked down to the hall toward the elevator and then closed the door behind him.

“You could stop being such an asshole to her, if she’s this evil genius you claim she is, you’re going to let her know that you are on to her.” Jason comments from the bed looking over the files on Tim’s laptop.

“I can’t help it.” Dick says plopping down on one of the chairs close to the bed, “it just comes out when I talk to her.”

“We should get some data on her,” Tim says only half listening to the conversation as he fiddled with a small camera that he pulled out of his backpack. “We don’t know anything about her and fighting blindly isn’t smart, we should follow her while she’s walking around the resort.”

Jason and Dick lock eyes with each other and nod in agreement.

“Let’s go do some recon then.”

***

It wasn’t hard to tell that the boys were following you. You’d caught Jason’s eye not too long after you entered the dining room and you’d probably would have shrugged him off if he had broken eye contact with you like he normally does, instead his overly friendly gaze caused you to be more aware of your surroundings. After that your keen eyes caught sight of Tim at a corner table in the hotels dining room enjoying whatever food was placed in front of him rather inconspicuously. As you and Damian moved to check out the gift shop, you’d spotted Dick halfheartedly flirting with the bartender not too far away from the store.

“What do you think?” Damian questioned as he turned to show you the pair of sun glasses that he had slipped on.

“Very practical,” you answered absentmindedly after glassing at the wide black frames on the small boy’s head.

Noticing your lack of attention, he turned to gaze at his brother who was pretending to be flattered by the bartender’s attention.

“They think you’re some kind of evil mastermind,” he comments nonchalantly as he placed the frames back on the stand, deciding he didn’t like the feel of the cheap plastic.

“They said that?” you ask worriedly.

“More or less,” he said with a shrug, “I read their lips on the plane, they thought you were going to try and kidnap us, I’m sure they still have the same concerns.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Father doesn’t have the very best taste in women. And besides they aren’t completely wrong about you, are they?”

You meet the green eyes of the small boy and roll yours with a sight, “I’m not saying they don’t have a need to be wary I just thought that your father would have told them about me already.”

“We aren’t exactly open with our secrets,” he says fiddling with a beige pair of glasses that caught his eyes. “How would you tell them that your significant other is a former assassin and is not going to try and kill you.”

“No wonder they hate me so much,” you say with a sigh. “I specifically asked Bruce if they knew about me.”

“That’s a question open to several interpretative answers,” Damian said looking at himself in the shop mirror before shaking his head and placing the pair of glasses back.

“I’ll be back,” you mumble.

“Hey, how much are these?” Damian asks the shop owner who rolls his large weary eyes at the demanding boy.

“They’re imported,” he responds gruffly, “So they cost more, than the others.

The boy waves you away with a hand as he continues to pursue the selection of the shop.

Making your way over to the bar where Dick sat you take a seat next to him.

“So, are you here with your family?” asks the brunette bartender asks Dick ignoring your presence.

“Yes,” he says abstinently as he sharp blue eyes meet yours skeptically.

“Can I have a beer please?” you ask sweetly trying to get her attention.

“Yeah, sure,” she says not meeting your gaze. “How long are you here for?”

“Oh, only a week,” you say interrupting, “I would have planned for longer but we have better service back home and I didn’t know how long I could deal with rude bartenders.”

She cuts her amber eyes at you ready with a snarky comment but your words finally register in her mind.

“Oh! Is this your mo-“

“No,” Dick interjects turning his body to face you entirely, “Can you bring me a beer too, please?”

“S-sure.”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment but when she comes back with two glasses and two bottles of whatever the house beer was. You push aside the glass and take swig from the bottle and put it back on the bar.

Dick does the same watching you warily.

“We need to talk,” you say watching as he places the bottle down.

“Going to confess?” he questions with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe,” you say looking around the room catching the curious eyes of his other brothers who snapped their attention away from you when you caught them staring. “I’m just worried my confession won’t be as devious as you suspect it of being. Kidnapping isn’t a specialty of mine, after all.”

“You were listening?”

“No, but a little bird told me.”

“Damian,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“Get your brothers and come to our room after you guys are all done down here,” you say patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll answer any questions you guys have, okay?”

His blue orbs meet yours and with a sigh he nods his head before taking another swig of his drink.

You smile and pick up your bottle and walk back to the gift shop where you left Damian.

Dick watches with a frown as he watches Damian almost perk up at your return and how he follows you the way a hatchling would follow the mother duck.  
“Get anything?” Jason questions as he comes up to Dick’s side Tim coming up behind him.

“Wants us to meet her in Bruce’s room, said that she’d tell us everything.”

“Should we go?”

“I don’t think it’s a trap,” Tim says, “There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly suspicious about the resort, nothing delivered out of the ordinary, normal population, and normal crime rate.”

“So, safe,” Jason says with a shrug. “At least here on the resort. If it’s just her in the room we can take her.”

Dick downs the rest of his drink before standing up, “Let’s go then.”

***

Bruce took a sip of his drink as he sat against the couch with crossed legs flipping through the pages of a book that he’d brought with him. Next to him Damian did the same. Their relaxed attitude completely at odds with the tense posture of the boys who sat with you at the small dining table.

The table around you was silent and you bit your lip in hesitation. You let out a sigh and rubbed the back of your neck nervously and then took a sip of the margarita placed in front of you.

“When Damian was five, I left the League of Assassins,” you state looking in each pair of blue eyes.

You watched as they digested your words and the idea ran through their minds.

“W-what?” Dick speaks up first. He’d certainly suspected that you were who you said you were but he wasn’t expecting you to be so…forthcoming with the information.

“You all enjoy saving people, don’t you?” You question. 

The boys don’t say anything just stare at you still stunned.

“Even if you get a little lost on the way,” you say eyes lingering on Jason’s form. “Bruce has instilled in you the want to help people, to protect people. And if you wanted to stop being your ‘other selves’, I’m sure you’d still find ways to help people, because it’s a part of who you are now.”

You swish the drink in your glass around, watching the ice melt slowly, “It was like that for me when I was a part of the league. Except, I couldn’t stop killing people. There wasn’t a moment in my mind when I wasn’t consumed by rage, or the urge to get my next target. That kind of thing wares on a person, even if they don’t realize it.”

“Well, you did, stop I mean,” Tim starts, “Seeing as you’re here now. How did that happen?”

You take a sip of your drink, “I was six when an assassin from the league was hired to kill my parents and they took me as a bonus. I was 13 when Bruce left the League. I never got a chance to meet him or talk with him, but I was old enough to understand that there was a hole that he left there. And that it gave Ra’s al Ghul a rage that we hadn’t really seen before.

“I-we, trained hard. Kids like me were told that we were given a second chance at life at the whim of the League and that we shouldn’t even dare to think about being defiant the way that Bruce had been, and we didn’t, we weren’t. We wanted to do things that made the people who we thought of as our parents happy. If that meant killing an old man or a baby we did it. And it when on like this for years,

“I was 16 when I met Talia for the first time. We were, close, as close as the two of us could be. When she had Damian, I was there. And for the first years of his life I cared for him. She was happy with the arrangement, since mothering never came naturally to Talia, and I got to have a small family that was all my own. When He was four and just climbed his first mountain. Both she and Ra’s were ecstatic about it and I watched as they put him through the same training that I was forced to do. And he progressed fast. Every day I watched him grow and get stronger, harder, deadlier.

“When he was away from me, I worried about what type of danger he was in, what was she teaching him, how was she corrupting him.”

“You loved him,” Dick states watching as the boy’s green eyes flash over to his momentarily.

“I adored him,” you correct with a smile on your face. “And I thought that I would eventually be able to let go like that but I couldn’t. The more attached that I got to Damian the more I realized that I couldn’t stand what I was doing. Killing people didn’t make me happy anymore, it just made me worry for him,

“When I asked Ra’s if I could detach myself from the mission side of the organization he agreed. I was so happy, all I would have to do was one last mission, and I could finally have some sort of peace.”

“What was the mission?” Jason questions.

“Murder a diplomat’s daughter, it was for revenge. The man had crossed the League in some way and I had to take care of it. It was nothing I hadn’t done before, so I thought it would be easy. Of course, it wasn’t. When I snuck into her room and saw that she wasn’t any older than Damian, I couldn’t do it, and so I ran and I never went back

“I travelled for a couple of years’ land made money doing jobs as a mercenary as well as I could eventually Talia came for me and after what was supposed to be a fight to the death ended in a stalemate, she told me that she’d left Damian, in the care of his father and I couldn’t help but want to find him and see what type of heathen’s care she’d left Damian in.”

“And you found Bruce.”

“Exactly, and then I told him my story. He allowed me to work for him and gave me a new name.”

“That can’t be all there is too it, how did you convince him to help you?”

“Damian helped, the rest is private,” you say with a teasing smile on your face causing the faces of the boys to flush in embarrassment and elicit a chuckle from Bruce.

“I can’t tell you everything I’ve done, or who I’ve hurt, I don’t want to go back to that place, but I hope you know I want nothing more than to protect not just Damian, but you guys too,” you end with a warm smile on your face.

“Also,” Bruce interjects, “If she was an evil mastermind you all did a horrible job at letting her know that you were on to her. That whispering you were doing on the plane, absolutely horrible.”

“It was a small space, the sound probably bounced off the walls, we were perfectly stealthy,” Dick rationalizes.

“I told you that you both were being ridiculous,” Jason says pushing himself away from the table, standing up and stretching.

“It’s not like she wasn’t an assassin though, she’s just the good kind,” Tim says with a shrug and then turns his attention to you, “Sorry we thought you were going to kidnap us.”

“It’s no big deal, I’m happy that you all are so proactive. There so much I could teach you all,” you saw swooning slightly, “Non-lethal things of course.” 

“Sorry for thinking you were an evil monster,” Dick said sheepishly. “Hopefully we can get to know each other while on vacation.”

“Weeelll,” you start your fingers fidgeting slightly, “Technically I’m the only one on vacation.”

“What?” Jason questioned suddenly reengaging in the conversation.

“You didn’t actually think I was going to leave Gotham for a week unprotected without a reason, did you?” Bruce interjected.

“So, this,” Dick motioned to the room, “Is part of the mission,”

“If it makes you feel better, I picked out the hotels and the rooms, wanted you to be comfortable when you come back to rest,” you say with a sweet smile. 

“Ugh,” the three boys groan in unison.

“Honestly, you all were so distracted you didn’t notice the obvious recon that Ummi and I were doing earlier,” Damian says haughtily.

You flush at the term of endearment, but only Bruce seems to notice as he glances over at you with a smile.

“What recon?” Tim questions skeptically, glancing between the two of you.

“The man at the gift shop is a smuggler,” you say matter of factly, “We believe that he is smuggling ingredients into the island for Scarecrow and a new fear toxin he’s working on.”

“What?!” They question.

“And the woman who was working the bar, is the daughter of one of the chemists act the facility,” Damian said bringing up an image on his phone showing the bartender hugging a woman in a lab coat.

“Why, didn’t you say anything?” Tim questioned Bruce.

“A house divided can’t stand,” Bruce said simply, “You all were so worried about what she might do you didn’t pay attention to your surroundings. There is already a chance that some of us may accidently get exposed to the toxin, so I brought you as back up. But having you distracted by the fear that you all built up would have made the situation almost impossible to navigate.”

The boys look away slightly ashamed.

“Well then,” you say finishing off your drink. “You boys better get ready, the suns about to set and the quicker you wrap this up the quicker we can have an actual vacation.”

Dick looks at you with a smirk, “Let’s get started then.”


End file.
